Note: This blog is also set to appear with permission on MomsRising As a California working mother, I join parents and caregivers across the country in applauding the introduction of the FAMILY Act today. As part of an advocacy community that helped pass California’s Paid Family Leave law, I know this is a turning point for low-income workers and their families in this country. Taking time off to bond with a new baby or care for a loved one should not be the privilege of the few. Children and families thrive when a parent and caregivers can be there for them and this benefits everyone. The...

This story originally appeared in the One Union Mom blog. At the height of Occupy last year, I was talking with a dad at my kids' school and he said, "Can you believe that some parents take their kids to PROTESTS?" (He didn't realize he was talking to a union mom whose kids' hands are calloused from holding picket signs). I wanted to explain that protesting hadn't always been so, well, so UNSAFE as it was proving to be in October/November of 2011. I also wanted to point out that it was, in fact, still a legal right. But legal or not, the image of riot police at every show of dissent is...

Last week, I talked to a cashier at a Ralph’s grocery store in Orange County, California. She told me she lives with and supports her 82-year-old mother and her disabled 56-year-old sister. She represents a growing group in the United States: a working woman who is head of household and also a family caregiver. But with the rise of the low-wage retail giants like Walmart, she is also part of a shrinking group: a union worker with rights on the job, health benefits, paid sick days, vacation and possibly a pension or retirement fund. And, with a union contract, she won’t be arbitrarily paid...

When I was in high school and college, I worked in restaurants. I worked for minimum wage and I worked hard - cleaning, cooking, even counting money and making bank deposits. I remember my pay going from 3.35 an hour to 3.45 an hour when I made ‘head cashier’ - a job that carried a lot more responsibility than a 10 cent raise would imply. My second year at UCLA, I got my first union job at a deli/restaurant in West Hollywood. There were some differences that I noticed immediately: grownups worked here, I had enough money to buy my family Christmas presents that year, and after a probationary...

I'm a baseball fan and a work/family advocate, so I loved the hoopla over the Texas Rangers starting pitcher Colby Lewis taking paternity leave to attend the birth of his daughter. High-profile fans denounced him in blogs and on the radio for "caring more about being a father than a starting pitcher." Work/family advocates praised him for putting family first. For those of us working on expanding maternity and paternity leave rights in this country, events like these throw a welcome spotlight on how far we've come and how far we still have to go. Colby Lewis is not the first major league...

The good news: Since California unions and community organizations helped pass Paid Family Leave legislation in 2002, over one million people have used the program, which provides up to six weeks of partial wage replacement for workers who take time off to bond with a new child or care for a seriously ill family member. A newly released report, Leaves That Pay: Employer and Worker Experiences with Paid Family Leave in California (Eileen Appelbaum & Ruth Milkman, 2011) shows that 91% of those who used the benefit said that it had a positive effect on their ability to care for a new baby,...

Have you looked at “ The 4-Hour Workweek ” by Timonty Ferriss? This book is meant for current and would-be entrepreneurs looking to “Escape the 9-5, live anywhere and join the new rich.” At first glance, Ferriss’ ideas on generating passive streams of income, mini retirements and remote work from exotic locations might not seem at all relevant to, say, an hourly worker at Vons supermarket. Or to a not-so-new-rich working mother of three like myself. But, since part of my job is talking to unions about bargaining for flex time, I think about how regular workers can take more control of their...

When my son was almost 10, I found out I was pregnant with twin girls. I was excited but a little intimidated. I remembered one newborn being a lot of work – what would two be like? I mentally prepared for double the amount of diaper changes, laundry, bottles and child care costs. But what didn’t occur to me until after my return to work was how going from one child to three more than tripled my chances of needing to call in sick. In a recent work week the family cat was diagnosed with feline diabetes, my son got hit by a baseball in P.E. and one of the twins threw up on the other twin’s...